The Office of George W. Bush will be in Dallas, near his presidential library at Southern Methodist University.

The president plans to write a book, give speeches, help build his presidential library and start a “freedom institute” to prolong his legacy, with a special emphasis on his “freedom agenda” of promoting democracy for the Middle East.

The chief of staff will be Michael E. Meece, a lawyer and former White House and Commerce Department official who is president of The Meece Group, a Washington consulting firm.

Meece has long ties to key figures throughout Bush’s world, including former Commerce Secretary Don Evans, White House counselor Ed Gillespie, former counselor Dan Bartlett and former senior adviser Karl Rove.

“Mike has a deep understanding of the policies put forward by this administration, so he will be able to monitor the accuracy of the Bush legacy going forward,” a Republican adviser said.

The communications director will be Rob Saliterman, a young international-affairs spokesman at the Treasury Department who has worked in White House communications and at the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign. Saliterman is a Minnesota native and a Columbia graduate.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said in a statement: “After leaving office, President George W. Bush and Mrs. Laura Bush will return to their home state of Texas, where the President will begin an exciting and busy post-presidency, including the building of his presidential library and freedom institute.

President Bush is eager to continue to promote the unwavering ideals and principles for which he has stood while serving as President of the United States.

“To help him make the transition and continue his work, the President is pleased to announce that Michael E. Meece will serve as Chief of Staff in the Office of George W. Bush. Mr. Meece has been a trusted adviser to the President over the years, beginning in his policy office when he was Governor of Texas. Mr. Meece previously served as Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the Office of Public Liaison. Prior to coming to the White House, Mr. Meece served as the Deputy Chief of Staff to then Secretary of Commerce Don Evans. He is currently the President of the Meece Group LLC, a Washington D.C. consulting firm. He received his BA and JD from the University of Texas at Austin. Mr. Meece and his wife, both natives of Texas, will return to their home state with their two daughters.”

Two of Bush’s most trusted advisers — Blake Gottesman, a White House deputy chief of staff, and Jared Weinstein, the president’s personal aide – will travel to Dallas with Bush to help get the office set up for success, including systems for correspondence, scheduling and information flow.

Bush plans to begin quickly on a memoir, probably structured around the toughest decisions of his consequential presidency.

He also will be very involved in the presidential library. The George W. Bush Presidential Center will include the George W. Bush Institute, an independent public policy institute that will host officials, scholars and others as fellows for research and symposia.

The president plans to select a speakers’ bureau and give a number of speeches, although they may not be in public for awhile.

At his farewell news conference this week, the president said: “I’m getting off the stage. I believe there ought to be, you know, one person in the klieg lights at a time, and I’ve had my time in the klieg lights.”

Asked when he would be back to work after returning to Texas next Tuesday, Bush said: “Probably the next day.”

Bush told Brit Hume in an interview aired last weekend on “Fox News Sunday” that he plans to get cracking on the book: “I’d like to get ‘er done. … I am a type A personality. … I require things to do. And I bet once I get going on this book, I’ll be able to get ‘er done. … What’s evident to me is that it is very hard for people to remember what life was like a mere four or five years ago. And it could be very important for me to recreate the environment in which I had to make certain decisions, particularly the environment of right after September the 11th, 2001.”

Meece, who formally begins March 1, has experience with a start-up from launching his firm. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and his wife, Ashley, is from Dallas.

Republicans say Meece is a proven organizer with deep Texas and Republican connections who has spent time with the president and is close to most Bush officials, including Josh Bolten and Joel Kaplan.

Former presidents are deluged with invitations, so Bush also plans to name an executive assistant, and has chosen a personal aide for the marathon ahead.